|
Commission Shoots Down Public Participation on Rate Payer Advocate Panel |
|
|
Showdown at the DWP
Edited by David Lowell
Despite an impassioned plea from President Nick Patsaouras, the LADWP on Tuesday voted to put their members on a proposed Rate Payer Advocate body, but refused … typical of its arrogant history … to allow the public a seat at the table.
 Here’s some of what Ron Kaye wrote immediately after the exercise in futility:
Even as other commissioners, under pressure from DWP officials and the
mayor, undercut Patsaouras a strong turnout of community activists --
25 speakers plus 15 or 20 others -- logically laid out the case that
the utility has lost the public's confidence after imposing one rate
hike after another, allowing the water and power infrastructure to
deteriorate and given away sweetheart contracts to its employees worth
5.9 percent across-the-board this year and even more to thousands of
them.
In the end, the board voted unanimously to move forward on Patsaouras' proposal to create an independent office that might be called the Ratepayer Advocate, Ombudsman or Inspector General.
The three commissioners who attended the meeting -- Edith Ramirez, Wally Knox and Lee Kanon Alpert -- expressed little enthusiasm for giving the seat at the table of power for the first time in the hundred-year history of the DWP.
Read all of Kaye’s report, plus videos, here. [[[LINK-http://ronkayela.com/2008/10/showdown-at-the-dwp-the-public.html#comments]]]]] (Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Daily News and blogs at: www.ronkayela.com) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 82
Pub: Oct 10, 2008
|
